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Subject: Re: Playing two chess programs on same computer

Author: Angelo Ciavarella

Date: 09:23:42 12/29/02

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On December 26, 2002 at 18:28:59, Mike S. wrote:

>On December 26, 2002 at 09:52:12, Angelo Ciavarella wrote:
>
>>Is there any way to play two different chess programs on the same computer?
>>If not, how can I keep both windows open at the same time so I can enter the
>>moves? I am running Win 95 and using Fritz 5.32 and Chessmaster 5500.
>
>Unfortunately CM5500 doesn't support Auto232 AFAIK. With two programs which are
>auto232 capable, you could autoplay them by connecting i.e. serial port #1 with
>serial port #2 with a nullmodem cable, and configure the programs respectively.
>I have tried that: it worked (although I'm not sure if it works on all comps
>with all progs...)
>
>But when you want to enter the moves manually, it's easy: Simply switch between
>the programs with Alt-TAB. Alt-TAB switches from one application to the next, in
>Windows.
>
>IMPORTANT: Make sure that both do not ponder (do not use permanent brain),
>because the CPU resources won't be shared 50-50. Especially Chessmaster is known
>to take much more than 50% in these case (I don't know if this applies to latest
>versions still, but I definetely read it often from previous one's). You'll
>probably have to create a *custom Chessmaster personality*, where you can switch
>pondering to off. Do the same also in Fritz' engine dialogue (F3) when playing
>the two programs like that. Also, make sure that neither hash table size is too
>big, IOW that both fit into your physical RAM, with (at least) ~30 MB reserve
>for system and programs.
>
>Games on one computer with Chessmaster pondering, don't make any sense. Your
>effort would be wasted. The opponent will get only a minimum of CPU cycles. I
>read an endless number of newbie messages on rgcc asking, "why does Fritz always
>loose against Chessmaster" just because of that reason. It always turned out
>that these people had no idea of pondering and the resource sharing problem when
>they simply switched between the chess programs without disabling the pondering
>first.
>
>Regards,
>M.Scheidl



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